


Pour Your Heart Out, I'll Keep It Safe

by stonyindustries (kissmyassteroids)



Series: 3490 Fest (2019) [1]
Category: Marvel, Marvel 3490
Genre: Artist Steve Rogers, Earth-3490, F/M, Getting Together, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-13
Updated: 2019-07-13
Packaged: 2020-06-27 13:52:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19792225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kissmyassteroids/pseuds/stonyindustries
Summary: A charity auction and a beautiful muse.What could possibly go wrong?(alternatively titled Confessions of an Artistic Kind)





	Pour Your Heart Out, I'll Keep It Safe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ishipallthings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishipallthings/gifts).



> Part of the 3490 Fest.  
> Hope you like it!

Steve looks up from his tablet when he hears Natasha shuffle into the kitchen, resurfacing from the workshop for a quick caffeine top up. She’s dressed in her usual workshop-binge attire: stained tank top and sweatpants, hair falling out of its bun. There’s grease staining her hands and arms and – well, everywhere, and Steve’s not sure he should find that as attractive as he does. 

“Catchin’ flies there, Cap.” 

He snaps out of his reverie and looks up to see Natasha grinning down at him, coffee clutched between both hands. He blushes and busies himself with getting back to his tablet as she collapses onto the sofa next to him and peers over his shoulder. 

“What’s that?” 

“The Brooklyn Arts Council asked me to do a painting for a charity auction they’re holding in a few months. It’s for a good cause,” he adds at Natasha’s teasing look. 

She just shakes her head fondly, “Always the Boy Scout, Rogers.” 

She shuffles closer to flip through his various ideas and Steve has to force himself not to squirm. This close he can smell the workshop and coffee and the perfume she’s wearing and it’s all just so Natasha it makes him kind of dizzy. 

Once again, she breaks him out of his thoughts. 

“So, mon Capitaine, what were you thinking of?” 

Steve gives her a blank look, still distracted by her perfume. 

“Of painting. For the auction?” 

Oh, right. 

Steve glances back at some of the rough ideas he’d been sketching but none of it felt right. 

He knew he could probably paint a few Stars and Stripes and it’d still sell, as long as it has his signature at the bottom, but he’s never been known for doing things by halves and this will be no different. 

He shrugs. 

“I don’t know; haven’t got much inspiration yet.” 

He gazes down at Natasha as she considers the sketches in front of him and has to resist the urge to reach out and pull her into his lap. 

Then something starts to shine in her eyes and she grins, Cheshire Cat like. 

“What about me?” 

Steve’s not stupid, he knows what she’s suggesting. Truthfully he’d been thinking about it for a while, but his brain stutters at the actual possibility so all he can respond with is a wonderfully articulate “huh?” 

“Me, paint me in the Iron Woman armour. Come on, Steve, we both know that’s basically a modern day Mona Lisa! What better muse could you want?” 

Steve tries to settle the butterflies in his stomach at the prospect. 

What better indeed. 

The following afternoon Steve’s getting everything ready when Natasha comes clunking through the door, the armour proud and shining. 

“Your muse has arrived,” she announces, mock bowing and grinning up at him, “you going to paint me like one of your French girls?” 

He manages to stifle his smile enough to reply, “I understood that reference.” 

He quickly finishes setting everything up and turns around to arrange Natasha’s pose. 

“So, uh, I was thinking you could stand in front of the windows and- here.” 

He grips the waist of the armour and moves Natasha so her body is angled slightly away from the floor to ceiling windows and he stands back to check. Then he moves in again, hesitant and nervous. 

“If you could just tilt your head-” 

He steals himself as much as he can and raises his hand to gently angle her head up and looking slightly away. 

It’s only when their eyes meet that he realises how little space is between them, the sound of her quiet breathing all he can hear and she moves her head so she’s looking up at him, a small smile teasing her lips. 

They stand like that, entranced, for a few seconds or hours, Steve’s honestly not sure and the spell is only broken when Natasha remarks 

“You’ve a crack in your ceiling.” 

The comment takes him by surprise and he stands there a moment more, frozen and reluctant, until he shakes his head and steps back. 

“Well, who built this tower, Stark?” 

Moment over, he ignores the catch in his breath and the pit in his stomach. 

Natasha gives him a shocked look as he sits down. 

“Rogers, you know I just designed this tower, I’d never have such sloppy workmanship.” 

He smiles to himself as he starts examining the paints in front of him. 

“Whatever you say, Natasha.” 

Neither of them mention that his art studio was later added onto the apartment as an extremely extravagant birthday gift and that Natasha did, in fact, help out with the construction. 

They don’t meet for nearly another two weeks. With Natasha off at a business meeting and Steve running ops for SHIELD, their schedules rarely match up, something Steve knows he probably should have thought of since the auction is in just over a month. He thinks about mentioning it to Natasha but he can’t bring himself to give up the time with her. 

He’ll make the deadline, he’s sure of it. 

\---------- 

“Steve, maybe-” 

“I’m fine, Natasha, please stay still.” 

Alright, he concedes to himself, maybe he won’t make the deadline. 

It’s currently 1:17am the night before the auction and he still isn’t finished. Natasha’s had JARVIS simulating a sunny summer’s afternoon light since four in the afternoon and Steve hasn’t moved since then either. 

Damn him and his crush. 

Steve has to admit, as much as he’s stressed right now, he still wouldn’t trade the past six weeks they’ve spent together for anything. 

After the first few days, they fell into the routine of Natasha meeting Steve in the studio with coffee in the morning and working until the late afternoon once the sun had started its journey back below the horizon. 

Then they’d go out together. Steve tried not to call them dates in his head. 

The first time, they’d gone out to the MOMA (“for inspiration,” as Natasha had insisted). After that, their trips became less and less related to the auction and, Steve had noticed with not a little excitement, more and more like pseudo dates. 

And throughout the whole thing Steve convinced himself he’d get it finished, until he ended up less than 17 hours before the auction with the damn thing still most decidedly not finished. 

“Steve, seriously, go to bed and finish it in the morning.” 

Natasha shakes her head at him and moves to walk over to where he’s sitting, hunched over. 

“Natasha, you go to bed, I can have JARVIS project your image, really.” 

She just sighs and stays where she is. 

Almost four hours later, Steve slumps back in his chair and rubs his eyes, groaning. 

“Fucking finally,” Natasha yawns and rolls her shoulders, stumbling over to him even despite the armour. 

“Wait!” 

Steve shoots up and hurries in front of Natasha. 

“I want it to be a surprise,” he explains. 

She looks up at him, unimpressed. 

“But it’s me,” she argues, pouting. “Besides, when else am I gonna get to see it? It’s being auctioned off tomorrow.” 

“All the pieces are being displayed beforehand, you’ll see it then.” 

She gives him the side eye and just shrugs when he doesn’t budge. 

“Alright then, suit yourself. I’ll see you tomorrw, Steve.” 

She’s turning to go when Steve blurts 

“Wait, do you want to stay here?” 

She turns back to face him, seemingly confused and surprised. Steve tries not to blush. 

“You just- you seem tired. Instead of going down to your floor.” 

The edge of her mouth quirks. 

“All I’ve been doing all day is standing around.” 

Steve smiles at her, rubbing the back of his neck. 

“Well, I owe you.” 

She ends up passed out in his bed curled up next to him after pulling him down with her as she collapsed onto the duvet. Steve falls asleep content and imagining having this, having her, like this all the time. 

In the morning, Steve agrees to meet Natasha at five to drive to the auction and she leaves to start catching up on work until then. 

He goes into the studio to get the painting ready for whoever will be collecting it and when he goes to take it off the canvas, he stops. And examines the painting. And feels the beginings of panic clutch at him. 

Fuck, he didn’t think this through. 

The limo pulls up outside the showing and they’re greeted by the usual mass of reporters and flashing lights. Once inside, a server offers them champagne and laughably tiny portions of food and they walk around the gallery together. 

Steve’s stomach ties itself in knots until they come to his. 

He watches Natasha’s face carefully as she looks at the canvas. 

It’s not big, about 15” by 30”, but he knows that doesn’t matter. 

The painting ended up being from the waist up, the armour shining and the reactor sitting proudly in the centre. Her face is tilted up as she seems to soar towards a clear blue sky that fades to a sparkling galaxy. 

He thinks back to this morning, finally looking at the finished painting with a mind that wasn’t so sleep deprived. Natasha Stark, immortalised in oil on canvas. He remembers realising with more than a little horror that it’s so obvious, that people will know. Worse, that Natasha will know. 

It was undeniable in each careful stroke of the brush, almost reverent, as he’d accidentally poured his heart out on canvas. 

Natasha looks up at him, seemingly shocked. 

“It’s great, Steve, it’s really-“ she pauses as she swallows and turns back to the painting. “Amazing.” 

Steve gives her a small smile in return, smothering the fluttering in his stomach. 

He opens his mouth to tell her, just tell her, you idiot when she continues. 

“Why’s it called Confession?” 

He swallows and rubs his palms against his suit trousers, probably more nervous than is warranted. He opens his mouth to tell her when a man comes around to tell them that the auction is starting and to start getting seated. 

He closes his mouth and holds his arm out for her to take. 

“I’ll tell you later.” 

The auction seems to go well. Steve makes note of some of the artists to compliment after. 

Finally his own painting gets placed carefully on the canvas under bright lights. 

“And last, but not least, we have Brooklyn’s own, Steven Rogers, who so generously donated this original piece, titled Confession.” 

The offers start increasing so quickly it makes Steve kind of dizzy. At one point he turns to Natasha to comment on it, to tell her she has to take some credit, to just tell her, you idiot but she’s staring up at the painting. She seems almost transfixed, studying it and Steve sees the moment a switch flicks and he knows she’s figured it out. He just about to say something, ask to talk to her outside maybe, when she shouts 

“$50 million!” 

The room falls almost deadly silent and everyone turns to stare. Steve feels his cheeks heat and shifts uncomfortably. Well, then. Talk about grand gestures. 

The drive back to the tower is silence, Steve afraid he’s somehow upset Natasha. 

The limo drops them off at the front doors and they cross the lobby, their footsteps echoing. They get on the elevator and just as the doors slide shut, he gathers his courage again and turns to Natasha. 

“Natasha-” 

“Were you going to tell me?” 

He hesitates before rushing on hastily at Natasha’s raised eyebrow. 

“I was! Tonight; I tried before when we were looking at the painting, but then we had to go in and then during the auction but you, y’know, bought it and- just now,” he finishes weakly. 

She shakes her head and opens her mouth to respond but Steve barrels on, determined to finish now that he’s begun. 

“I didn’t know how to tell you and then I talked to Sharon this morning and she called me an idiot-” 

Natasha snorts and Steve smiles. 

“-and told me to just tell you, that I might be surprised.” 

Natasha moves closer to him and as he meets her eyes he thinks back to the beginning of all this, when they stood in the same position, both with the same desires. 

“So what are you telling me, Steve?” 

“Natasha Stark,” he licks his lips nervously, “W-” 

He never gets to finish as Natasha surges forward, pressing them together and tugging him out when the elevator doors open. 

They stumble and land sprawled on her sofa, staring at each other and breathless. 

“You’re such an idiot,” Natasha laughs. 

“You didn’t ask me either!” 

She just continues to laugh and presses her forehead against his. 

“I took you to all the classic date places, babe. Hell, we even went bowling. It’s not my fault you never realised; now you have to come up with something new for our first date.” 

“How about dinner and a movie? We never did that and there’s this Italian-” 

She laughs and punches his chest lightly. 

“You’re such a sap.” 

“Well?” 

She lays down half on top of him and rests her head on his chest, silent for a few moments until she responds quietly 

“Dinner would be great.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, hope you enjoyed it!  
> I know absolutely nothing about how auctions work so I hope this is okay


End file.
